40+ Printable Call Log Templates in Microsoft Word and Excel

In businesses, especially those which involve a lot of communication using mobile or telephones, it would be essential to practice call logging. This is when statistical and technical data is collected, evaluated and reported to be able to derive useful information from it. Usually, when you do call logging, you’d have to come up with a call log template to record all the calls which happen each and every day.

In a phone call log template, you’d have to write down the origin of the call for incoming calls, the destination of the call for outgoing calls, the start and end time of the calls and other information such as the characteristics of the transmission or the call. These logs are mainly used to register all the incoming and/or outgoing calls per day with a lot more details.

A lot of businesses can benefit from having such records especially those which deal with leads, customers, as well as business partners as the information recorded, can be vital in day to day business. When you have such a log, all you have to do is look at it or use it as reference as needed and you’d quickly and easily be able to identify a particular call along with who made it and to whom it was.

When you are making a call sheet template or even a sales call log template, you’d can look for samples online or even make your own with a format fit to your preferences. Just make sure that it would contain the relevant information you would need when using it as reference. Such relevant information would be, but are not limited to:

Whether the call was incoming or outgoing,

The exact date and time of the call,

The people involved in the call (the person in your organization and the person from outside the organization) and

All other relevant information which would apply to your organization.

This article is all about call logs, from the benefits, what you can learn from them and even some helpful steps and tips to guide you in actually making your own template using Microsoft Excel so read on and be informed.

Benefits of Having a Call Log

Before we start looking into making an actual phone call log template for your company or organization, let’s find out the benefits of having such a document or a record. As you would see, these benefits would be very good for you especially if you deal with a good amount of phone calls each day.

For Controlling Costs

If you’ve set a budget of phone usage, it would be very helpful for you to start having a log to record all the calls made from your phones. You may have to orient your employees regarding the new system of recording calls or call logging so that they are aware and they would start recording the calls they make whenever they make use of your phone. While you’re monitoring your calls, you’d also have a better idea of how many calls are made from your own organization on average each day or each month.

To Avoid Hacking

It’s an unfortunate fact that nowadays hacking of phone systems is rising again. Nefarious people are beginning to start hacking into systems of organizations, in order to make overseas calls which could end up being extremely expensive. Once you see that there are extra calls which have been made but are not part of your log, you can take steps in rectifying the situation.

To Keep Track of Major Accounts

If you have a lot of accounts and you’d want to keep track of the bigger or more major ones, you can do that with a log. If you know the numbers and details of the major accounts, you’d be able to ensure that you will answer calls from them whenever they try to contact you, keeping a good relationship with them.

To Keep Track of All Sales Calls

If your organization deals with a lot of sales calls, or if it’s the actual nature of your business, then having a call log template is of the utmost importance. Using the log, you’d be able to see who is performing the best, who needs training and how effective your agents are.

To Help Manage Service Desks

Knowing who is tying up your phone lines each and every day will allow you to gauge how many of your customers are actually communicating with your people. In any kind of business, the majority of the calls would have to be to or from actual customers rather than those who are just curious but aren’t actually purchasing from you or availing of your services.

Identify Strengths and Weaknesses

When you provide a call log to all of your employees, particularly in businesses which involve a lot of phone conversations, you will be able to see exactly how your employees are performing. You can then give credit or incentives to those who have an excellent performance record and take steps towards improving those who seem to have weaknesses. You can do this by training, coaching or guiding the employees until their performance improves significantly.

Boost Feedback During Training

Speaking of training sessions, whenever you have such in your organization, you can use the logs for reference and as a point of discussion during training. Without mentioning names of employees, you can use their personal logs to show what good performance looks like and what poor performance looks like and what steps you can take in order to make them better. The log would be an effective and concrete tool you can use to enhance your training and give a better insight to your employees.

Aid in the Process of Setting Goals

Collecting logs and evaluating them would give you a good picture of how well your business is going, based on phone sales and conversations. Once you’ve done your evaluations and you’ve seen that performance is improving, you can set higher goals and inform your employees of these new goals. On the other hand, if you see that performance is not up to par, you can set more achievable goals and give your employees the chance to reach them for the betterment of your organization. Either way, once the sales call log templates have been filled with the right information, you will be able to use them effectively.

For Monitoring Progress

When you have set goals which are either new or existing, you would need a way to monitor your progress – and logs would aid in allowing you to do so. In organizations like call centers, logs can be used to monitor the progress of their agents and see if they are reaching their quota. If all the agents are able to do so, then it means that the organization, as a whole is moving towards attaining their goal. It’s very important to keep on monitoring the progress of each and every employee so that those who are doing well are given credit and those who are doing poorly are given the help or assistance they need to be where they need to be, professionally.

Develop a Learning and Progressive Work Environment

Having a call logging system where the employers regularly evaluate the results of logs and take the appropriate steps based on the results would allow the whole work environment to move towards a culture of learning and progression. All employees would have to see and appreciate the importance of the logs and what the organization is doing to help them out in case they need it. When the members of the organization are open to learning, it is only then that the whole organization progresses and moves toward their goal. Also, when the organization develops learning and progressive environment, the overall atmosphere improves and the organization becomes more productive.

To Enhance Customer Satisfaction and the Quality of Service

When you look at all the benefits listed above, you will see that they all work towards the improvement of your company or organization. When the whole organization becomes more productive, it means that it’s because the employees are working well. This, in turn, means that their ability to provide better service quality is enhanced as well and when this happens, customer satisfaction increases. As we all know, this is one of the most important parts of an organization, when the customers and clients are happy, because they will most likely continue to patronize your products and services and they may even spread the good word of how amazing you are at what you are doing.

All these benefits from a simple system and from creating an efficient phone call log template. It may seem like a simple piece of paper or a simple document but actually it has a lot of uses and practical applications. Now that you’re familiar with the benefits, we can move on to finding out what you can learn from such logs before we look at steps in actually making your own template.

What You Can Learn from Sales Call Logs

For call centers and other similar businesses, agents or employees spend a majority of their time on the phone, either solving problems or concerns regarding your products and services or setting up and trying to close deals. No matter how fast technology is advancing, a lot of organizations still rely on the telephone to be able to thrive and progress.

Making a call log template and giving it to your employees or agents to fill up as they take or make calls would provide you with a wealth of data which can be very valuable to you if you know exactly what information to ask for. Making a good log would entail a lot of thought from you but once you’ve come up with the actual template, all you would have to do is distribute your template and once they have been filled, you will be able to learn a lot of things from it.

You’ll Learn How Many Calls are Needed to Close a Deal

Once you’ve collected all the data from your agents, you will be able to see, on average, how many calls would be needed to close a deal. Different kinds of deals would need different strategies and possibly a different number of calls. Having the log would allow you to make calculations and evaluate your results to be able to come to conclusions.

You’ll Learn if the Size of the Deal has an Impact on How Many Calls Would be Needed to Close It

Naturally, bigger deals would most likely require more calls to complete it. If you find out that smaller deals take as much time, effort and calls, then you would have to rethink your strategies and suggest other ways to talk to people to your agents or employees. You may have to come up with a training session to introduce these new methods, if needed.

You’ll Learn if the Source of the Lead Impacts How Long It Takes to Convert the Lead

Again, using the logs, you’d be able to see how trends go. In dealing with leads, you may have to modify your template so it includes the information you need such as the source of the lead. Doing this would help you learn more about the impact of source and other such information.

You’ll Learn if You’re Actually Effective in Qualifying Leads

Looking into your logs and the results of your employees’ calls would actually provide insight on whether your sales and marketing outreach initiatives are effective. By analyzing your logs, you might actually develop a better understanding of which sources give the strongest leads so you can focus on them more.

You’ll Learn How Long it Takes to Disqualify a Lead

Learning this from studying the trend of the logs would actually save you a lot of time and money. If you are able to gauge if a lead has promise or not, you can share that information with your agents and they can disqualify the lead once they determine it’s no longer viable.

As you can see, you will learn a lot from creating call logs and starting a call logging system. Convinced yet? Then let’s move on to the last section, where we actually learn how to make your own templates using Microsoft Excel. Read on and maybe you’ll be creating an effective log for your company in no time.

Making a Call Log Template in Excel

Now that you have more information, you can start learning how to make a goof call log template. You can create one using the software of your choice but typically it’s a lot easier to use Microsoft Excel. When you use this particular software, it would allow you to create a log to record all incoming and outgoing communications on an Excel workbook, which is more organized and more convenient.

Excel actually has built in templates which have tables you can sort and assign categories to such as the names, phone numbers, start and end times of the calls and such to keep your data organized for easy viewing, whether on your computer or when printed out on a piece of paper. You will also be able to personalize the template with the ribbon tools to ensure that all the content of your logs are meaningful.

If you would like or need to update or modify your log, all you would have to do is make the changes then save the file using a different file name. Read on to learn helpful steps in making a template using Microsoft Excel.

Click on the “File” tab then choose “New” to see the page with selections of template thumbnails.

Click on the “Search for Online Templates” field and type in call log then press enter to see the display results.

From the results, choose the “Sales Call Log and Organizer” thumbnail to see the template in a larger view and read the description of the template. When you’re happy with the template, click “Download” or “Create” to copy the template to a new Excel workbook file. Save the document before you even start editing. This is so that all your work will be saved, even if your battery runs low or there is a power outage.

Click on one of the lower sheet tabs (such as client contact info, sales call log or others) so you can see the worksheet on your screen.

Now you can start customizing your Excel table design either by clicking on a single cell or selecting a range of cells. Once you’ve done that, you can click on the “Design” tab found on the Table Tools ribbon.

Find and click on the “More” button found on the Styles gallery so you can open the Table Styles chart. Here you will see thumbnails displayed and listed under Custom, Light and Medium categories.

Hover your cursor over a thumbnail so you can see a preview of the effect of the style on your table or selection of cells. You can go through all the styles and select the one you’re happiest with and apply it to your whole worksheet so it has a single design.

In the Client Contact Info worksheet, proceed to input all the data of your contacts such as the names and contact numbers. If applicable, you can even add secondary phone details if they have other numbers.

On the Sales Call Log worksheet, compile and enter all the details of your calls. Be sure to update the Checklist worksheet and go through all the applicable items.

Save your workbook on a folder you will remember.

You can also choose to make a blank sales call log template or a blank call sheet template if you want and distribute it to your employees so they can start filling it out. You can either print out copies or email the files of the log to them so they can either input the information by hand or in their own computers.